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I’m a little late

So it’s nearly halfway into January and I haven’t blogged or posted any resolutions or goals or heady thoughts, no looks back, no looking forward. For sure my time online these days is a fraction of what it used to be, and for sure life is crazy busy; but I think it’s more than that. I think I have found myself in this place of wondering who I am writing for?  Is anyone reading, why am I writing, what’s the meaning of it all???  And then I remember:

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But seriously, these have been my thoughts recently. Still, I find I don’t want to let go completely, not quite yet, so I here I am.

A quick look back: Ugh, 2015 was rough. .  really a carryover from 2014. 2015 was a healing year, but healing isn’t easy stuff. Whether physical or emotional – it’s tough to do what you  need to do to ‘get better’.  So I’m glad to put it behind me.  I’ll hold close the lessons learned and look forward into 2016.

A quick look forward:  2016. YAY! No real resolutions. And I’ve never been a ‘word of the year’ person really but two words have popped out at me this year and so I’m claiming them. I’m keeping them handy and reminding myself of them frequently.

My two words:

Adjust

to remind me to analyze and make small adjustments when and where needed. This came about from the following graphic that was floating around the interwebs recently

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(in true fashion I have not yet made this list…I kind of have a pretty good idea at this stage of my life what I do every day and what makes me happy though it may be interesting to write it down!)

 

 

 

OPEN

to encourage me to be open (in so many ways) – to thoughts, experiences, people, to everything God has in store for me in 2016. Whether it’s part of my plan or not.

There are so many things out of my control right now, and I believe some big life changes coming in 2016….I can’t talk publicly about them yet because they affect other people and nothing is set in stone yet. . . . .if things happen the way I (we) expect that they will then my little world is going to be turned pretty much upside down come fall so I’m going to squeeze as much out of the next 7 months as I can while getting ready for fall. 🙂

One of the things that I am focusing on is my creative outlet. In addition to my faces, I am painting a bit more and I am committed to getting into my metalsmithing studio on a regular basis. To help with the metalsmithing I have joined a year long challenge, creating with a group of other jewelry artists which will help keep me accountable. My first piece is done and I think may be slightly indicative of where I’ve been and where I’m going.

I also took time this weekend to start re-organizing my house in anticipation of things to come. 🙂   I hadn’t really planned on spending most of the day Sunday going through my kitchen cabinets but that is where I ended up and I’m SO glad I did. I was exhausted by evening and then realized I still needed to make my piece of jewelry, so last night was a late night for me!

Time management or life management?

“Just Enough Hours “. . . . . what does that mean? What was I thinking?

JEH-005 I moved over to this blog coming off of a LONG period, maybe a lifetime, of thinking I could do it all. No, scratch that. I didn’t really think (as in believe) I could do it all, I just DID a lot.

Because I ‘had’ to. And no, I don’t really qualify the ‘had’. I really sort of did have to. No, scratch that. I didn’t have to.

Where, let’s start again – Yes, there were a lot of things I needed to do. (HAD to do) (as a single mom, an employee, etc)

But there were a lot of things I was choosing to do.

In any event, I would hear people say ‘there aren’t enough hours in the day’ and I was guilty of saying that too, but then I got to thinking about how much I already do, and what if there were MORE than 24 hours in a day….can you imagine? Could I imagine? NO! I’d be dead from all the ‘doing’.

so I came to believe that really we have JUST enough hours in each day. God set the light and dark for just the right amount of time. 🙂

How we choose to spend that time is up to us.

More recently I got to thinking about how people used to ask all the time – how do you do it all? Or they would say “wow, I don’t know how you do it all”. And either way it was phrased, I’d honestly try to tell them that I really wasn’t do it all WELL . Yes, I was doing a lot of things, had a lot of irons in the fire — but so much of it was only getting a tiny bit of me. And I finally hit a breaking point. Not really in terms of stress or anxiety or like I had a nervous break down. I just sort of started to think about my time and again thought about the ‘just enough hours’ and this time from the standpoint of – there are JUST so many hours in the day — a finite number – how am I spending them?

And it’s not just about time management. It’s larger than that. It’s about life management.

How am I valuing my time but more than that how am I valuing my life and the people in it. . . . .

I came across this quote a while back (erroneously attributed to Meryl Streep) and although I don’t agree with every word and I realize that it’s not a blanket to cover every situation (for instance, I do believe in loving others even if they don’t love me and I am big on smiling at EVERY one….) but overall, this struck a chord in me.

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So WOW, that’s a mouthful.  And while I do many of these things I am much more conscious these days of what I ‘bring in’ in addition to what I’m putting out.

I had been struggling for a couple of years with leaving some things behind. Letting go of things and people who I had chosen to make a part of my life that really weren’t aligning with my core values or what I wanted to surround myself with.  And because of that dichotomy, it wasn’t healthy for me. The truth is, I should have let go a lot sooner. It would have been easier, more seamless, less painful. . . . . .

It has become less about managing time, using the hours and more about aligning it all with my values – who I am and what’s truly important to me.

Life is short and unpredictable and tomorrow is not guaranteed to anyone.

Not only are there ‘just enough hours’ in a day but there are only so many hours in a life.

Is how you are choosing to use your hours in alignment with what you think and believe and what from life?  Time management is really life management. Shouldn’t it all align?

Share your thoughts below!

Update to delete your Tsu account

After signing up and posting on the tsu platform for a short time, I quickly abandoned it as I just didn’t have time for more social media. In fact, I actually have pretty much abandoned FB as well. Time will tell about that.

Anyway, I keep getting questions about deleting a Tsu account. Can it be done? Can you really delete your Tsu account? And if so, HOW does one delete their Tsu account?

Well, they have made it easier. From their “terms” page:

User Account Termination or Modification

We reserve the right to terminate the Service or your access to the Service, or close your account, for any reason or no reason, without notice, at any time, and without liability to you. You can close your account at any time for any or no reason by logging into tsu.co, clicking here and completing the form to request that your account be deleted. We reserve the right to permanently erase your account from our systems immediately or at any time after we receive the request or to preserve a record of the account for some time for legitimate business purposes and as required by law. In some cases, the deletion process may take some time. Account deletion may not ensure complete or comprehensive removal of the content or information you posted on the Service. For example, it will not necessarily remove content or information that has been stored, shared or re-posted by a third party. We reserve the right to retain information where required or permitted by law to do so. When your account is closed or deleted, all licenses and other rights granted to you in these Terms of Use will immediately cease.

At any time, regardless of whether your account is being closed, we reserve the right to retire your username/shortcode or assign it to a new user, in each case at any time and without prior notice to you. We may choose to exercise this right if your use of a particular username or shortcode is unlawful or violative of a third party’s trademark, or in other situations where we believe it would be appropriate to do so. You do not have any property interest in or right to use any specific username or shortcode.

I’m not crazy about the term ‘soft delete’ which is what the link takes you to – your account – soft delete. You will find a page that asks you to enter your password. After that, well, I’m not sure. I didn’t delete yet.

If I do, I will update here. 🙂

Previous posts about Tsu:

Can you delete your tsu.co account?

What is Tsu.co?

Mid life crisis?

Tick-tock, tick-tock….

It sounds cliche – but it is so true – life goes by SO fast.  Even when we think it’s dragging on — maybe because we’re waiting on something or we’re enveloped in some monotony or tedious task……..eventually we get to those points where we look back and go “holy cow, five years in the blink on an eye!”.

I have that recurring feeling lately as I realize we’ve been in our ‘new’ house for four years now. FOUR years.

Huh? Really?

And ummmm, HOW? How is it the time has gone SO fast?????

Do you ever have these little questions pop up — like:

It’s Monday again already ?

Laundry needs done? Didn’t I just do that?

High school classes? Seems like I just sent him off to elementary school – Where did the time go?

How did she (or he) (or they) get so big?

How did I get to be “xyz” years old? (48 this summer)

Do you ever think back to the ideas you had when you were 5, or 10, or 16 or 20?

Are you where you thought you’d be?

That’s not even what I find myself wondering…what  I’m wondering lately is more like “what HAPPENED to the things I used to love?”  

I mean, I know what happened – life happened, I made choices, I had children, I poured my heart and soul into them (and still do and will and don’t even want that to change!) –  I did what I needed to do at times – for me, for my family. and I’m ok with that.

I wish I had done some things differently….that I hadn’t squandered so much of my youth…..I did some things great, some things not so great…I’ve made good choices and bad choices, and really really bad choices…..but I’m in a good place. I’m blessed and I’m thankful.

And I’m ready to revisit some of the things I’ve let go along the way. I’m ready to begin thinking and planning about the next set of choices, the next set of years that are going to go whizzing by……AND I’m SUPER excited!

I look at some of the choices I’ve made in the past year and I think – wow, this must be why people get accused of ‘mid life crisis’ — But nope, it’s not. It’s an awakening. It’s another chapter.  It’s a natural progression I think – especially when you’ve raised children. There is a lot of focus on them and then you get to this point where – ahhhh. look at that – a free afternoon….a free evening. I’m not an empty nester yet — but I’m starting to feel like there may be this really fun mix of empty nest/mid-life quasi-do-over/next chapter coming.

Tell me I’m not alone! Has anyone else gone through this? Or approaching this? Can anyone relate?  🙂

Oh and just so you know – I didn’t buy a sports car – I bought this instead
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This is “Atomic Caesium”  or Casey for short 🙂

She’s our newest addition and we are so incredibly excited to have her!

Horses are one of those things that I have loved all my life – having been blessed to own my own as a teenager into early adulthood and also to make a living with horses as a first career.

I’m so excited to revisit this and will share more as we go along!

The Surprise I Got When I Left Facebook

Is it time to quit or leave Facebook? I want to share with you the surprise I got when I left Facebook. But first – full disclosure – I need to say that I have not deleted my FB account. I have deactivated it to take a leave from it. A little vacay from the world of FB.

A sorely needed and much overdue leave.

and I want to make it clear that I’m not a FB hater and I’m not trying to tell anyone else to leave. I’m just sayin’ that for me, the time had come.

While FB has a lot of positive aspects, and it’s just a tool – I found that overall I was not able to make good use of the tool.

It was not a good use of my time and the overall risk/reward or however you want to analyze it — well, it just wasn’t coming out on the positive side for me.

It had become a negative experience and I was  logging too many WASTED hours.

Sure, I love seeing what everyone is up to and connecting with people I’d lost touch with and family and, and, and…..(part of the problem – too many ‘ands’ – I love seeing too much stuff from too many people!! ) .

So there is a LOT of noise. At least for me. A lot of white noise and it finally dawned on me that it’s draining.

It’s a huge time suck – like a trip down the rabbit hole – I wandered into something strange and beautiful but it was a long way down – never ending really – and there was some darkness there too.

We have this one life. A certain number of days – who knows how many. . . . . . and I can, without one shred of doubt, say that spending hours on FB everyday is NOT how I want to spend this blessed gift of a life.

So when I found I was actually feeling more and more dissatisfied with the experience – annoyed at nearly every turn while ON and left unsettled when I logged off, I realized it was a case of it’s ME not YOU (FB).  And it was time for a break up.

I ‘deactivated’ my account which is not quite as easy or straightforward as one might think.

In settings there is a ‘deactivate’ my account link.  Click on that and you find yourself at a page that asks you if you’re sure and then asks you to choose from a list the reason why you are deactivating.

Interestingly, the defaults are set up that your account will self reactivate in 7 days. So that is what I did the first time. I think I selected the option  that I was spending too much time on FB and I allowed it to reactivate in 7 days. Seven days later my email was full of alerts and notifications so it’s a self announcement when you’re back. 🙂   But, back up – It wasn’t really quite that easy. Because I admin several groups on FB I had to be careful – the blurb says that everything remains the same when you come back EXCEPT your admin status. OOPS. Quick double check to make sure I had back up admins in all my groups. Back to the deactivate button, click, annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd. Nope.

I also am a ‘developer’ with an app. Can’t deactivate or leave FB until you transfer the app to someone. 20 minutes later and that was done. And something like 45 minutes after I began, I finally was able to click the button. DEACTIVATE.

I expected to begin twitching IMMEDIATELY.

I expected to feel flushed and nervous – like being at a high school party with all the cool kids when I didn’t really know anyone and everyone is talking around me or over by the keg and I can’t hear and I don’t really know what’s going on and I just want to be a part of the fun! I expected it to drive me cuh-razy.

What surprised me when I left Facebook?

While I expected to be twitching in this void of silence, in this vast nothingness, instead I felt IMMEDIATE relief.

Honestly, it was a palpable lightness. Like a weight off my shoulders.

and the other big surprise.

I didn’t miss it.

not one single bit.

Which is alternately surprising and wonderful, and scary and just a little confusing, and disturbing – kinda all at the same time.

I’m puzzled.

but I’m ok with that. (and some of it is beginning to make more sense so I’ll be back with a follow up post to share my insights)

I’m not incessantly checking, I’m not wondering what’s going on there, who said what, posted what, shared what. I get home from work and I don’t get sucked in for an hour checking updates and groups and daisy chaining from one link to another.

I’ve found time. (which is great considering the name and intent of this blog – we have JUST enough hours – for me FB use was stealing some of those minutes/hours)

I’ve gained some peace (that I didn’t know had lost as it happened so gradually over a period of time).

The big question for me is – what do I do going forward?  Not only did I keep in touch with people via FB but I also made new friends there who I may not have another way of contacting (just yet) So, I do hope to dip in and out – maybe pop in every couple of weeks catch up with some friends and I’ll keep my business page(s) going to the best of my ability by scheduling posts when I pop in, but I am hopefully (and pretty sure) that the days of incessant checking and hours chasing info and clicking links to watch screaming goats and cute kitties are forever GONE.

It is really quite remarkable to me, when I think about it, how integral FB has become to our culture, our lives. . . . it’s a ‘norm’ for most people, most businesses……this ONE app has become such a daily part of people’s lives. In a very short time. It’s changed our culture and I think will leave a rather large footprint.

I don’t know what to make of that.

I am really really intersted in hearing other’s thoughts – have you left facebook? Taken a break? Deactivated or deleted your facebook account? Or are you thinking about leaving facebook?

Comment below !

Brushing the dust off

It’s a new year, and that is always a great time for me to re-evaluate and reapply myself.

This blog is one of those things I’d like to take a look at, dust off, and apply myself anew.

I’ll start with a re-introduction –

Hi there!   P1310238

I’m just another blogger carving out a little space on the net.

BUT – I believe that I have a unique perspective – as do you.

And I hope my perspective will resonate with some folks, maybe challenge some others…that I’ll learn more about myself and life

and maybe I’ll meet new people (please say hello!!)

I blog from Maryland, which is where I grew up.

I’m a single Mom to two (one grown, one finishing up middle school) and a Nanna to two little boys.

All of these little blessings live with me.

We also have two dogs – if you can call them that.

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Well, yes, you can call them that –

they ARE after all dogs.

But they are the tiniest silliest little things,

I sometimes wonder if they qualify.

 

 

 

 

I plan on blogging about my life in general with a focus on food, Crafts/DIY, and my Metalsmithing.

I suppose that’s a little broad, and I expect over time to hone in the vision for the blog.

But for now – it is what it is!!

So, let me start with a question – because I know some folks HATE that expression (it is what it is), what expression do you hate or are you just tired of hearing?

Comment below!